Sleeping States | words & music

I’m afraid I’ve been a bit quiet on the website this year. Mainly because, apart from a few shows over the summer, and a short winter tour in the American north-east, I’ve been a bit quiet with Sleeping States. Life has been taking over for a little while. I’ll be getting back to Sleeping States soon enough, but in the meantime I’m in a new band called Beginnings. We had our first show at the weekend, with Enablers, aannd… we’re going to do some more and stuff. So look out for those. Until then!

The Kayfabe Juncture cassette EP is now up for sale on here! Just go to the shop page to purchase.

The cassette contains two instrumental drone pieces I recorded as part of a live art performance in June 2010, curated by artist Rhiannon Chaloner at the Arnolfini gallery in Bristol. The artwork is a still taken from a video edited by Rhiannon for the performance. Copies are pretty limited, so don’t hang around and that.

Here’s an excerpt of the track ‘Instruction’:

 

So new/final info details: Philly show is at the Ox, Black Telephone are awesome, as, actually, are all the bands (seriously), tickets for the NYC show are available via the Live page – all other shows will have tickets on the door, venue and date info is up on the Live page, I’ll be bringing copies of the new Sleeping States cassette EP with me to sell at shows (as well as other merch), before it goes on more general (by which I mean very limited) release post-tour.

So I’ve moved the forthcoming tour dates up on to a page of their own for ease of viewing, which you can access via the Live link up there.

Also, tickets are now available for the New York City show with Nina Nastasia on January 20. It’s gonna be a special gig I think I’m working some stuff out that I haven’t really done before for it. The venue’s one of those secret locations (somewhere in Bushwick), the address will be mailed once you buy a ticket. Also I believe there are drinks and hor d’oeuvres with the ticket price.

Other shows too, here’s a flyer for the Boston show:

This is going to be a LOT of fun, I’ll be playing with CUFFS who have risen from the ashes of the more than excellent Slumberland band Pants Yell! – in fact Andrew from PY!/CUFFS is going to be joining me as guitarist/percussionist for the whole of this mini-tour so I have a lot to be thankful for there as Pants Yell! have been high on my list of favourite bands ever since we played together on a UK tour way back in 2006. Total reunion moment.

The Philadelphia show is still being worked out (these things were ever thus) but I’ll put up final details on here as soon as they’re pinned down.

Until then…. Mxo.

These things happened a little while ago, autumn/winter 2009, but I think I forgot to add them here. So here you go now

‘The Next Village’ from bandstandbusking.com

‘The Next Step’ from MCR Screenwipe

‘Showers in Summer’ from The Fly TV

New visual

As of today things are looking somewhat different in here. I was getting a little tired of the appearance of this site and figured I’d set about redecorating. Also, just to make it a little more of a challenge I decided to build something nice from scratch rather than using a preset theme, so hope you like. On that note, if you have any constructive comments, anything not working as it should or whatever, let me know. There are a few newfangled webtricks in there so it probably looks best in something like Firefox or Safari, but it should look ok in all browsers.

Anyway, shh web-Markland.

New EP

I have a new cassette EP coming out in January. It’s called Kayfabe Juncture and is two instrumental tracks I recorded for a film/performance art piece by Rhiannon Chaloner, commissioned for the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, which took place in June 2010. And that’s the artwork above. (Pre)ordering details will be up on here soon.

New tour dates

Finally, I’m doing a small selection of dates along the US east coast in January, so if you live in one of the cities below, come and hang out. I’m very excited that I’ll be joined on guitar and percussion by Andrew Churchman of famed and wonderful Boston-based Slumberland band, Pants Yell! and more recently, CUFFS. Also, the Homophones will be playing with us for a couple of dates, who are most excellent.

• Monday 19th 17th January – Boston @ Middlesex Lounge, w/ CUFFS
• Tuesday 20th 18th January – Philadelphia @ (Venue TBC), w/ Homophones and Scott Churchman
• Wednesday 21st 19th Jan – Washington DC @ Velvet Lounge w/ Homophones & Black Telephone
• Thursday 22nd 20th Jan – Brooklyn (Bushwick) @ Envelope

…

Oh! Before I go, Bristol people will I’m sure be stoked to hear that our city’s finest vegan establishment, Cafe Kino, are moving and expanding very shortly, and I’ll be playing a co-set with Sleeping State-ette Liz Hickson, and wonderfully wonderful Rozi Plain for the launch of the new place (yes, there’s even room for a PA in the new place!). This is taking place on the afternoon of Sunday 19th December, from 2pm. See you there amigos.

Here’s something:

Thanks to Zoe Bryant for her supergood version. Number 3 after xx and Cocteau Twins is certainly not a bad place to be.

Here’s a video with edited highlights of a Sleeping States show at the Cube Cinema in Bristol, from early August – made by James Stokes at the Cube.

The songs included are:

• The Sleeping States, or Who Has Been Rocking My Dreamboat
• Breathing Space
• Showers In Summer
• Gardens Of The South

A recent, short essay on the modern one man band over at WKE radio, focusing on the excellent Dragging An Ox Through Water, Sleeping States, and LCD Soundsystem. You can listen over at WKE.